Intruder (11 page)

“Damn!” Bren said when he had finished it. He passed it across to Banichi and Jago, who could share the document, and settled back with arms folded.

“Is something other than what was represented, Bren-ji?” Tano asked.

“Lord Machigi is what he is,” Bren said. “You shall see, nadiin-
ji, when you read it. This man is full of turns. But so is Tabini. And so is the dowager. One is not sure what one has loosed into the aishidi’tat. He is a man of qualities. One is simply not certain in what direction they tend.”

In due time Banichi finished reading—clearly so. He let expression show—a little perplexity in a lift of the brows. And Jago, half a beat later: “The Dojisigi and the renegades together did not find a way to attack this man directly. One should remember that.”

The paper went to Tano and Algini, who read it together.

“He did say,” Banichi said, “that you should use this paper as you see fit.”

Banichi and Jago had been there in the breakfast room when the statement was made.

“One believes both the dowager and Tabini-aiji should see it, nadiin-ji. With all it entails. One does not want to inflame the situation. But they do need to see it, do they not?”

“The question is, at all odds,” Jago said, “whether he will keep his pledge to stand by this version of the truth.”

“Is it not?” Bren said, and thought—in Ragi, which was the only safe way to think on the topic, There is no one in the world more unhappy than a solitary ateva. Machigi said it: he has no relatives in his own district. His aishid is all he has. His clan is virtually wiped out, except a contract marriage to a Dojisigi, and he himself has not yet married. He has taken no risk of that sort…and begetting a child is a risk for him. He says he was about to marry a woman fifteen years his senior. But that is all politics.

And it may, like every other statement in that letter, be a lie.

Machigi is young to have landed in such a position. He does not admit to fear. Possibly he feels none, since he has never known a time when he was not a target.

For a young man, he is scarily short of good advisors. But the four closest to him are extraordinary, at least in combination.

He vividly remembered having a gun leveled at him—in Machigi’s hands. And with equal vividness, he recalled Machigi’s immediate and easy change of tactics when he had not spooked. Machigi had become sarcastic, sullen, then increasingly outgoing and cheerful. Shift of masks. One after the other. And which was real?

Yet—I shall miss you, Machigi had said.

Right before handing him this outrageous document, a flat-out warning that no one should investigate the truth who did not want to find out things that would be very inconvenient for their future relationship.

I promise to base my future actions faithfully on this document as if all these things were true.

The scoundrel, Bren thought. The outright scoundrel. Jago was right. Two dangerous neighbors, Murini and the shadow Guild alike, had hesitated to take on this young man.

And once the Shejidan branch of the Guild had moved into his land, Machigi had advanced straight toward Najida, dodging fire, slipping
right through the zone of conflict and helping deliver a death blow to the shadow Guild.

With what intent? To protect the dowager?

Or to attack her, if the Shejidan Guild didn’t stand by its word?

If Machigi had intended simply to run for safety, any ship in his harbor would have carried him to far safer territory in the Isles with far less effort. No. Machigi had come straight for Najida. He had gone for Ilisidi, pursuing, presumably, not her life, but the alliance that she offered him against the Guild renegades—perhaps because he saw that the scales were rapidly tipping toward the dowager as a powerbroker, and he had her offer dangling in front of him.

Machigi had, damn him, likely done at least half the things he was accused of.

So did they waste time in investigating what he
had
done, or proceed as the letter said, from a fresh start based on what its creator clearly said was a fabrication?

And might not be a fabrication at all, only a truth cast in the most defiant way possible.
Deal with me, but do not debate me. I shall not answer your questions.

At times being human was a real difficulty in dealing with atevi politics.

Algini said, having read the letter, “He is taking the advice of his bodyguard.
Good.”

He didn’t read the second letter, the one addressed to Ilisidi, which was sealed with the wax seal of the Taisigin Marid. He did worry about it.

He had a drink of fruit juice from the well-appointed galley on the bus, then settled down in the quiet his aishid afforded him and began to work on his notes for the upcoming report to Tabini-aiji.

His brother Toby and Barb had sailed for Port Jackson, worrisome in the weather, but they were good, experienced sailors. They’d
enjoy the storm that had swept across. That was Toby’s attitude.

Najida was about to undergo a major renovation in addition to the repairs. He’d asked an architect to design a new wing, from his sketches. Getting the main hall in order was a priority. He’d promised a wedding venue to a village girl, in payment for a dress, and that promise, among others, had to be kept.

Cajeiri was presumably safely back in his parents’ care and not apt to leave it until they let their guard down, which would not be soon.

And the Edi were busy staking out the ground where they would build a new center, on land donated by Lord Geigi out of his estate lands. A new Grandmother Stone would go up there, marking something very, very important to the Edi people.

Jago came up the aisle to say they had just heard from Lord Geigi, in fact: Lord Geigi had wanted to be notified when they were headed for the airport—which meant, diplomatically speaking, when they had gotten safely away from Tanaja with everything in order, and knew that they were getting out in one piece. Geigi had been just a little worried about the visit.

“Lord Geigi wishes you a safe flight, Bren-ji, and will see you in Shejidan.”

“Thank you, Jago-ji.”

Guild was talking to Guild, routine exchange of information. The bus had long-range communications that let them do that.
He
couldn’t use it…not being Guild. For a brief while during the last mess, he’d thought fondly of having modern communications installed on the bus. He’d come out to the west coast to do a little work on a bill to allow cell phones, which were all the rage over on Mospheira—to allow them at least in limited general application on the continent. It was his job, among others, to oversee the surrender of human tech to the aishidi’tat, by terms of the treaty that had settled the War of the Landing—

But just occasionally, when such a release of technology was proposed, it was his job to say a firm no.

He had bled over the lack of personal communications on that last mission. And much as he had wanted a phone—he had to admit it would have made matters worse.

The traditionalists among atevi were all up in arms over the impending bill…which had been scheduled to be a main feature of the upcoming legislature. It was a given in all the reports that the paidhi-aiji was going to support it. Numerous people wanted it, not remotely concerning what it meant but sure it was going to be important and modern. The Messengers’ Guild was interested but dubious. But more to the point,
Tabini
wanted it.

Where it regarded introduction of human tech to the mainland, the paidhi-aiji had an absolute, though rarely used, veto, and the aiji would have to dismiss him from office to get past it.

He had learned, in that recent conflict, the reason for the ban on lords talking to lords in a combat area. He had thought naively that it might serve to straighten things out and stop a fight.

But God! it could so easily go the other way. Whatever took fine control of a messy situation out of the hands of the Assassins’ Guild, who had their own system of keeping a firefight out of civilian areas, could not benefit reason and order. Not on the mainland.

And two lords in the field talking back and forth under fire were not likely to improve anything…either understanding or attitude. He only needed think of personalities. Pigheadedness. Party affiliations. Clan loyalties.

Outright fools giving away their position and getting their own people killed. He only needed think of Lord Tatiseigi’s communications system, which had leaked like a sieve. It had nearly cost them their lives and the country its leadership.

No, the Assassins’ Guild hadn’t publicly stated their position on the cell phone issue. But he knew now of a certainty what they thought of it. And why.

So God help him, the paidhi-aiji, whom the conservatives believed was in favor of unbridled excess and the systematic overthrow of all tradition and culture, was about to come down on the same side of an issue as the archest conservatives in the aishidi’tat, the number-counters, people who believed the numbers of a situation dictated the outcome and affected the cosmic harmony. Including people who thought the space station upset the universe.

The same people were going to have an apoplexy when they considered the Edi and Gan gaining seats in the legislature and a lordship apiece.

They’d think he’d changed his vote on the cell phone issue to placate them about the other matter. That it was a sign of weakness.

Hell. Maybe he could offer to vote against the cell phone bill if they’d drop their opposition to the Edi and Gan issue. And then actually do it. That would be underhanded.

It was reasonably certain that Tabini was going to be upset about his vote. He had to warn Tabini before he did it. And before his veto, if the thing passed.

Ilisidi had picked a nice time to leave town.

He already wanted her back.
God,
he wanted her back.

The plane was another world after the long drive to reach it. It was no jet, but it was appointed like one.

And finally, having packed off their far too eager junior Guild escort back to Najida and Separti Township, they all could relax, in an arrangement of five seats and a small table, and be served by the plane’s steward.

There were no other passengers, no freight or mail on the outbound leg of the flight, and there were no delays in prospect. The plane climbed, westward at first, and made its ascent over Najida peninsula in a red sunset. A steep bank showed them Najida below, and yes, Jago reported, there were trucks outside the house. Workmen.

The sun speared across the cabin as the plane finished its turn, nosed off to the east, and headed for Shejidan, its altitude giving them a second lease on daylight.

“When we see Najida again,” Bren said, “it will be about twice as large as it was before. And we shall no longer have to play politics for the bath.”

That brought a little amusement. And the steward arrived with drinks, a little alcohol for him, plain fruit juice for his bodyguard, who would count themselves on duty until they got where they were going and the door shut behind them.

A good supper, however—that was perfectly within the rules.

Homeward bound, this time, really home—or what should be home: he had, after all, spent a significant portion of his life in the Bujavid. But his heart, he discovered, was still within the little villa they were leaving behind.

And it would, indeed, not be the same quiet little place when he got back. It would be better, more able to accommodate several high-ranking guests with numerous servants. Not to mention there would be no line-up for the bath or, worse, the accommodation.

And he was going to have windows overlooking the harbor, no longer wasting that beautiful view with a blank wall and a garage. It was a tactical risk…but he was betting on the world he was trying to build—one in which those big windows would be safe, and farmers and hunters would not find dead men in their fields.

A world where—in his dreams—people would understand that their neighbors were inevitably going to share the planet, and that the planet as a whole was going to have to get along with other people and places it had never bothered itself to imagine.